Veneration
The first mass was celebrated at Achbinico on February 2, 1497, and the Adelantado Alonso Fernández de Lugo ordered the construction of a hermitage there, but it was not built until 1526, during the rule of Pedro Fernández de Lugo. This was the site of the Basilica of Our Lady of Candelaria. The basilica was destroyed by fire and rebuilt in the 19th century. The statue itself was lost when a tsunami carried it out to sea in 1826; the present statue is a copy by Fernando Estévez. The image of the Virgin is dressed in rich robes of different colors and jewels.
She was declared patroness of the Canary Islands in 1559, by Clement VIII (and principal patroness in 1867 by Pope Pius IX). The Virgin of Candelaria has been widely used for prayers, such as epidemics, plagues, droughts and volcanic eruptions of Mount Teide and other volcanoes, in a manner similar to the invocation of St. Januarius of Naples to stop the eruptions of Vesuvius and of St. Agatha of Catania to eruptions of Mount Etna in Sicily.
Between October 1964 and January 1965, the Diocese of Tenerife conducted the largest pilgrimage took place in the history of the Canary Islands, the transfer of the image of the Virgin of Candelaria (Saint Patron of Canary Islands) for all municipalities and cities island of Tenerife.
The cult of the Virgin of Candelaria swept America due to the emigration of canaries to this continent. The canaries took the devotion as a symbol of their culture, something very similar to the diffusion of the cult of St. Patrick by the United States by Irish emigrants.
She is widely venerated in South America and the Caribbean, where she is the patroness of Oruro and La Paz (Bolivia), Medellín (Colombia) (which was founded as Villa de Nuestra Señora de La Candelaria de Medellín) and Mayagüez (Puerto Rico) (which was founded as Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria de Mayagüez). There is an image of her at San Antonio, Texas, center of an isleño community, as well. In the Caribbean African diaspora religion Santería, the Virgin of Candelaria was syncretised with the Yoruba goddess called by the names Iansan and Oya. In coastal Brazil Candelaria, called Nossa Senhora das Candeias in Portuguese, is syncretised with the Yoruba Goddess Oshun.
In the Cathedral of San Fernando of Texas (the oldest Catholic cathedral in the United States) is a replica of the Virgin of Candelaria, which is accurate to the venerated in the Canary Islands. This is because the city of San Antonio was founded by canaries.
In the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth (Israel) place where tradition says the Gabriel announced to Virgin Mary her motherhood, is a mosaic of the Virgin of Candelaria, patron saint of the Canary Islands, along with those of other Marian devotions famous in Spain. The mosaic of the Virgin of Candelaria was opened by the same bishop of the Diocese of Tenerife.
Read more about this topic: Virgin Of Candelaria
Famous quotes containing the word veneration:
“Erasmus was the light of his century; others were its strength: he lighted the way; others knew how to walk on it while he himself remained in the shadow as the source of light always does. But he who points the way into a new era is no less worthy of veneration than he who is the first to enter it; those who work invisibly have also accomplished a feat.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“It is evident, from their method of propagation, that a couple of cats, in fifty years, would stock a whole kingdom; and if that religious veneration were still paid them, it would, in twenty more, not only be easier in Egypt to find a god than a man, which Petronius says was the case in some parts of Italy; but the gods must at last entirely starve the men, and leave themselves neither priests nor votaries remaining.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)